Recommendations for good car inverter

Now that I have my power back 5 days after Hurricane Irene, can
someone recommend me a good car inverter at a reasonable price? I need
it to power basic stuff like cell phone chargers, laptops, etc. But I
also possibly want to power an LCD tv.
Obviously the higher the wattage, the better. I just don't know who
has the best deals online.

I picked on up for under $20 at a Black and Decker outlet. Worked
fine, but being a ham radio operator (W3FIS), it produced too much
"hash" and RFI/EMI. Would nicely handle my laptop, etc. Any good
marine or auto parts store should carry something, maybe even Walmart?

I got all mine at Walmart. Can't beat that return policy.
I haven't looked in ages, they used to keep them back in a corner in
"Automotive" by the tires and car stereos. You wouldn't just trip
over them wandering the aisles.
-----
- gpsman

Pretty well any of the mass market (walmart-esque0 equipment will be
noizy crap. Xantrex and a few other companies make pretty clean full
sine wave inverters. Most square wave units and "stepped sine wave"
units are extremely noisy/dirty.

Another option would be to just power the items from 12V and avoid the
loss and crappy power from a cheap converter. The cable that fits all of
our cell phones was $8, The small LCD TV came with a cigarette lighter
cord. I forget how much the 12V cord was for the laptop but it wasn't much.

Can you tell me where to buy a laptop 12v cord? Then I wont even need
my inverter. I have an IBM (Lenovo) laptop. I suppose Lenovo has
them but they'd probably cost more than the computer did. Hell, they
wanted around $30 for a system battery replacement for it. (special
battery with wires on it).

I've found the easiest way to pick this stuff is to look at the Amazon
reviews. If there are enough reviews you know what you're getting.
You can do price checks after pinning down what suits you.
You don't want to buy solely on price.
--Vic

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